by P. S. Power
“Um, just to clarify, the Burks that was here the other day, that was Lairdgren?” Tor wanted to make sure he wasn’t just confusing two different things.
“You didn’t know? You seemed pretty casual about him, so I thought…” Rolph shook his head a little.
“No big thing, we’ve met many times, he just neglected to mention the whole part about being related. Anyway, I didn’t know some of that stuff, about the kids and all, so if you want to back out Varley, I’ll understand.”
Rolph stared at him, then shook his head.
“Tor… You look just like Count Lairdgren. I mean, I figured out the connection before we even went to Two Bends based on that. He’s a little older looking, but not even all that much. In the right light, I’d swear you were the same person.”
Tor made a face, mouth screwing up just a little.
“Except for the fact that he’s really good looking and I look like this. Kind of a major point, don’t you think?”
No one said anything for a second, Karina started to speak, but was silenced when the King waved his hand.
“Tor also has some other information for us.”
That got Richard talking, which he did excitedly. Connie seemed pensive, and Varley kept coming back to the other topic, clearly more interested in that than having a share in her own secret military force.
“So…Tor is extra magical? Is that why he can do so much more than anyone else?” The girl asked, interested, but not, thankfully, scared.
Connie answered that one.
“No, according to Burks it’s more likely that he’s normally gifted, and just works that hard. It’s not that he’s extra magic, but extra disciplined. I think what Lairdgren was getting at was that we could all do what Tor does if we weren’t so lazy. But when I pointed out that he doesn’t do what Tor does either, he stuck his tongue out at me. You’d think after three thousand years or more he’d have learned better manners.” Her face took on a lovely smile, showing that she wasn’t really put out by the whole thing at all.
It turned out that Varley, for all that she announced openly her intent to go back to Wildlands Station with Tor, couldn’t. Whatever duties the Princess had at the moment, they were actually deemed far too important to lose, even for a few days. That was fine with Tor, since he didn’t really have a place for her yet, not something nice enough. It was one thing for Rolph to stick his future wife in a room with his lover and Tor, who was mainly just over in the corner working anyway. It would have been a lot different for Tor to do the same thing. At least it felt like it. It wasn’t that his hut looked bad inside, but it was a bit crowded with three people and even more with four, adding a Princess and whatever protections she’d bring to the situation at the same time would probably be too much.
So something else to add.
At least he was learning enough to see how important getting other peoples’ help was. It still ripped at him, asking other people for aid, but he just couldn’t get everything done on his own. Well, not fast enough anyway. He should probably stick to building for a while, and leave the real work to everyone else.
Somehow in all of the excitement from Veronica, Connie and Rolph, Karina forgot to question him all that closely about why he’d picked her little sister and not her to marry. That was good, because he couldn’t explain it. Not at all. Sure, he liked Varley better than her. But what did like have to do with getting married? He’d tried that and look where it got him. This time he was going to do it right and treat it as a strict business deal, not letting his heart get him into trouble.
What it came down to though, was simply that Varley, now that he could see what had been set up by the girl, had been working him into place for this for a long time. Since what, their second meeting? How she thought back then that she’d make it work he didn’t know. Then again, given her being a noble like she was, she might have had twenty plans like that going on at once. She might still have them going on. Another reason for him not to get involved except as a pure business deal.
With kissing.
She was good at that.
It made him smile for a second until he realized that getting good at things normally took practice. Well, that wasn’t her issue; she was right for her station and part in society. Torrance Baker was the backwards hick that needed to catch up. Maybe Ursala would be willing to help him there? Or, and he cringed a little inside thinking about it, maybe Sara?
She was Rolph’s girlfriend though, so he didn’t want to make trouble there. Maybe, if needed, some of the professional women would help him out? It felt wrong to use their services, but at least it wasn’t because of his prudishness this time. No, it was just because they were under his protection.
They talked for a long time, including the river going up and how he’d like a message as soon as any of them heard about it from any source, including, he added, an indication of exactly when they heard about it and who told them.
“Oh! I also… If you want to keep using the Not-flyers we need to get everyone wearing them. Two girls floating around in brown dresses stand out as much as if they were walking around in full regalia. I’ll try to send some around in about a week or so, but until then…”
Karina crossed her arms, still dressed in her brown servants dress, which, Tor noticed now that he had time to pay attention, wasn’t heavy canvas at all, but a soft looking material that probably breathed in the heat, not that she’d need it yet. It was decently comfortable outside right now. Enough that during the day Tor didn’t even turn his equalizer on at all. The Princess pouted a little.
“Great. Varley gets a decent guy to marry, but I have to dress in a shipping sack and Tor wants to send me off to the kitchens to “learn the value of hard work”. What next, cut my hair and join a religious order? Now I can’t even use my Tor-shoes?”
Everyone laughed, except Tor and oddly Richard. Tor shuddered a little at the use of “Tor-shoes” for the Not-flyer, but let it pass for now. Instead he tilted his head and regarded the girl, pretty in her brown dress, with her bright, long hair. Her incredibly rare and distinctive copper colored hair.
“Well, no. I mean no religious order needed for now, but if you’re going to actually hide who you are when you’re out and about, you have to lose the hair. You too Rolph. I’d suggest a brown dye for Karina and about the same for Rolph, with a military haircut. Put him in blacks instead of brown servant garb and he should fit in. None of your servants are as big as him, but some of the guards are. Not that I know of anyone watching that closely. I was just… thinking, you know?”
Tor realized something odd. His mind had actually slipped into the same state he went into when working on a building project. There was no overt field problem here, which baffled him for a moment. Laughing, both of the kids grabbed at their heads as if to protect their hair. Like hair was important? He chuckled along, but the King started nodding a pensive look on his face.
“The Royal Guard has been after them to do the same thing, basically, for about a week now, on the premise that looking like the people around them will lend safety, not any specific threat. If Tor can see the same thing though, that probably means that it’s not just their natural paranoia coming into play. I won’t order you children to do it, but I highly recommend you take it under advisement.”
They both went still and frowned. Finally Katrina glared at her younger sister and pointed.
“Fine, but only if Varley has to cut her hair short. I mean like a military bob.” She made waving gestures around her ears.
After a few moments of silence everyone laughed, Tor joining in to be polite. It was a family thing, clearly, this obsession with hair. They were probably pretty safe, as long as they stayed with the Royal Guard all the time in the palace. Well, unless the Austrans just bombed them.
A cold chill ran down Tor’s spine. It was more than just a bit of fear that something could be done, it was like a strong field of cold came over him, a warning. Either from his own mind, or the fi
eld potential of the future, this was real. Enough that he needed to act on it at least.
Right. Something else to work on then. Could he even stop an Austran bomb with a shield? Or, was there some other way to protect against them? Maybe he could shield the whole palace complex? It was huge, and he couldn’t protect against everything, that would take more field building that he had in him. What did their kind of explosives do really? He needed to find out more.
He came too with Connie gently shaking his arm.
“Tor… is everything all right?”
Walking over to his friend, the Prince nudged him, which worked, because his shield was off, sending the much smaller man tumbling a bit. He smiled up at Rolph and shrugged.
“It’s that work thing he does. Probably figured out a faster way to make cheese or how to breathe like a fish underwater or something. He does that. We should probably load him up and send him home now. Actually, I’ll take him, if I can be spared for a few days? I have some things I need to get done and Tor still has his… thing to do, and he might need my help with that.”
Thing to do?
Oh, the letter and stuff to Trice. Right. He’d been putting it off for a few days now. It shouldn’t take long to write, but the whole subject hurt too much to think about. He’d promised to do it so he had to now, but that didn’t mean Tor wanted to, or really thought it would work. In his mind it just seemed like throwing water on an oil fire.
Even the King knew how well that worked now, didn’t he?
It sounded like it should work at first when really it was just going to make it all worse. But worse for him right now might be better somehow in the long run? That had to be taken on faith. How anyone could trust Trice now he didn’t know, but if the King said to trust her he would. At least as far as his actions went.
Thank goodness the King hadn’t decided that the marriage wasn’t off or something like that, trapping them both into something neither would be able to take for long. Cringing, Tor wondered for nearly the first time if he’d been being fair to Trice. Gods. What if… What if she really had just said all that for the reasons she’d told them? Would she have thrown him to the wolves as bait to flush out the people that tried to kill him? He knew she would have. If she’d have asked first, would he have told her to do it, even if it made him look bad? Of course. How could he not?
So was it fair of him to blame her for it now?
That was harder. He still hurt, but if she’d really done it for him and her family, if she was still doing it for them, then he had to change how he was thinking about her. Didn’t he? The thought was uncomfortable to say the least.
Rolph sat beside him in the back of the transport, while Godfrey sat in the front section, “piloting”. What the military man called driving a transport. They could have flown themselves, but it really was faster to ride, and this particular transport had padded seats, soft pillows all in a heavy red cloth that made it fairly comfortable. Plus it had to go back anyway, Godfrey couldn’t fly without it… which was ridiculous. He needed to have his own personal gear as soon as possible too. The man was a base commander after all.
Tor stretched a little as he sat, arms going above his head and then twisting from side to side. When he stopped the blood rushed from his head and the world got sparkly in a thousand colors for a few seconds, mainly blue and black.
They spoke about what Tor should write to Trice which according to Rolph needed to be a lot different than what he’d thought.
“No… Tor, look, if you write something snarky and sarcastic like that, of course she’d have to reject it. That might work a little, but if you really want to give her something to play off of, you need to make it seem like you really love her and abjectly apologize. Show what work you’ve done to fix yourself and really seem like you’re trying to get her back. Maybe… mention that you’d be willing to throw over Varley for her, if she’ll have you? That… We’ll if she goes after you then, that should about do it. Especially if she takes it public. I’ve been thinking about it and I kind of wonder if it will be done that way though. I mean, if you send in Collette as a go-between, and it goes directly to Trice at the Wards estate, it should only be seen by them, right? If they take it public, then when they try to kill you for her, it would be too obvious. If they’re quiet about it…”
“Are they that smart? I’d guess Trice is, but the Wards?”
“I… don’t know. Really I tend to think of Marvin Ward as a bit of a mental midget, but that may not be fair. He’s always had the looks and position to not have to try very hard and his dad didn’t really push him like my parents have me. Maria… I don’t know her hardly at all, except as the bitch that hurt my friend, and a bit from school. I really thought she was some cute scholarship girl that got in or the kid of some merchant family that just didn’t know “the rules”. It wasn’t until later that I figured out that country rules wouldn’t actually allow for things like that either. Collette Coltress isn’t like that… not that we’ve met personally.” Rolph grinned a little.
“You know, when my mom met with her to apologize, she punched her? Collette I mean, punched mom. Left a bruise on her face for a week. Told her it was one thing to snub a nobody like her, but to go after a hero like you… Well, the things she’s said about you in public match that. I know it’s been work for her to put up with Trice and Maria and the kinds of things they’ve been saying about you. She’s done it, because of orders from the King, but otherwise I don’t think she could have managed.”
Collette struck Connie over him? And more, Connie just took it? That was… odd.
“Really?” It was kind of hard to believe on half a dozen levels. Wouldn’t that have caused a war or something? An attack on the Barony of Coltress at least?
“Yeah, I know. Mom felt like it was deserved though, after what happened and took it as just punishment. That’s why she locked herself in her rooms for all those days, waiting for the bruise to heal enough to go out in public. You know, it’s a little scary, thinking about one day being King, having parents like mine as an example. I mean now, if some merchant kid ever comes and beats me down for being a jerk, I have to actually stop and think about whether I deserved it or not. Seriously, it hardly makes it worth being the heir at all.” The straight face he had held for all of ten seconds then he had to laugh, a big, joyful sound.
“Of course it didn’t hurt that Collette did it in defense of the big hero Tor. You know, I love you, and I’d die to protect you, but you could really give a guy an inferiority complex.”
Waiting for the laughter Tor wondered if he could throw one of the pillows from the seat at his large friend, but they seemed to be tied down under the seat with fairly thick brown string. Oh well, that would have been childish of him anyway. When Rolph didn’t say anything else, but kept looking at him Tor finally shrugged.
“Me give you an inferiority complex? How’s that supposed to work? You’re kind of what everyone in the world wants to be. Tall, good looking, great with people, rich and, you know, let’s not forget, heir to the kingdom. Oh and smart. You even have a great family. Women throw themselves at you, I’m sure a lot more than I realize, and probably were even when you were at school pretending to just be Rolph Merchant. Thanks for not rubbing that in by the way, but me give you an inferiority complex? Don’t make me laugh.”
Rather than laugh, his giant friend blew raspberries at him rudely. He tried for one of the pillows himself, but stopped when he noticed that they were fixed in place. He crossed his arms instead and pinned Tor with a look.
“Granted, I’ve got a few edges over Bill the tanner or Howard Turnbull, but really Tor, if you’d only done one of the things you have you’d still be famous. Make people fly? God, that alone could get you laid in any city in the world right now. There are sitting Counts that would lend you their wives just to get you to come to dinner, and a couple that would offer to do you themselves if they thought it might work. Maybe more than just a few too. And that’s just
because of the devices you make.
“Look at the rest of it… Little kids stuck down in a collapsing pit and you climb in after them knowing it was collapsing. You. Personally. You didn’t try to order someone else in, or just stand and watch. Don’t think I didn’t hear that workman tell you that you could lose your foot either. You did it anyway and never even complained about the pain from the break. I would have been demanding drugs and crying into my pillow for half a month if that happened to me.
“Then with Duke Winchester, everyone else was too afraid to try and do anything, even me and the Royal Guards. You waded in and made him let Lady Priscilla go, even though I know that you fully expected to die for it. No one else got that Tor, they thought you were just being brave, doing something a little dangerous, but that you knew you could handle even with a broken leg. I saw the look on your face afterward. You handed me your shield as a sign that you were willing to go to your death for having saved her. I know you too well to not get that stuff now.”
Rolph didn’t look at him, facing forward. The only sound he made for a minute was breathing. A bit heavy, not exactly a sigh though.
“You always do the right thing, the brave thing, no matter how hard or how unfair it is that you have to do it. So yeah, inferiority complex big time. Worse, I know, somewhere inside, that in most of the cases I’m talking about I could have done the same thing, but didn’t because I was too afraid.”
“You’d have never fit in that hole.” Tor said seriously. Getting a strange look from Rolph. It was a slightly sad look, one that said he felt mocked. It wasn’t meant to be at all.
“As to the rest, well, you did what you had too. If you started fighting with Winchester to save Priscilla, you probably would have killed him, or just as bad, the Royal Guard would have gotten involved to protect you and they would have done it. Besides, I’m not really certain that “too stupid to know better” is the same as brave.”
